Saturday, April 28, 2018

PORTLAND, OR, 04/26/2018 — Writer Joe Henderson (showrunner of Fox’s Lucifer) and artist Lee Garbett (Lucifer, Loki: Agent of Asgard) defy gravity with their hot new series launch SKYWARD. The first issue of the popular new series is being rushed back to print in order to keep up with customer demand and the 2nd printing cover will feature breathtaking artwork by Jock.

In SKYWARD, gravity on Earth suddenly becomes a fraction of what it is now. Twenty years later, humanity has adapted to its new low-gravity reality. For one Willa Fowler—a woman born just after the fateful “G-day”—life after gravity it pretty awesome. Until she accidentally stumbles into a dangerous plan to bring gravity back. A plan that could get her killed…

SKYWARD is an adventure-filled exploration of our world turned upside down and a young woman’s journey to find her place in it.

SKYWARD #1 remains available for purchase across all digital platforms, including the Image Comics website (imagecomics.com), the official Image Comics iOS app, Comixology’s website (comixology.com), iOS, Android, and Google Play.

SKYWARD #1, 2nd printing by Jock (Diamond Code MAR188286) and SKYWARD #2 (Diamond Code MAR180755) will be available on Wednesday, May 23rd. The final order cutoff deadline for comics retailers is Monday, April 30th.

Select praise for SKYWARD:

"Skyward is a great new series with a great hook and jaw-dropping artwork by Lee
Garbett. Highly recommended!" —Jeff Lemire

“This debut issue finds a way to tether readers to its high-flying story, and the issue
wraps with a bewildering cliffhanger that will leave you desperate for its next issue.” —ComicBook.com

“Exhilarating and unique... Garbett and Fabela provide some great artwork. This comic
earns a strong recommendation. Give it a read.” —Bleeding Cool

“A confidant debut issue that mixes strong characterization with beautiful work from
Lee Garbett and Antonio Fabela that gives the reader a strong indication of what this
new series is about.” —Multiversity Comics

“An immersive and entertaining read.” —Newsarama

“Fantastical story and kinetic visuals.” —Polygon

ABOUT IMAGE COMICS
Image Comics is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded in 1992 by a collective of bestselling artists. Image has since gone on to become one of the largest comics publishers in the United States. Image currently has five partners: Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri, and Jim Valentino. It consists of five major houses: Todd McFarlane Productions, Top Cow Productions, Shadowline Comics, Skybound Entertainment, and Image Central. Image publishes comics and graphic novels in nearly every genre, sub-genre, and style imaginable. It offers science fiction, fantasy, romance, horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, humor and more by the finest artists and writers working in the medium today. For more information, visitwww.imagecomics.com.

LOS ANGELES, CA (April 27, 2018) – Square Enix®, Eidos-Montréal™, and Crystal Dynamics® today revealed the full trailer for Shadow of the Tomb Raider™, the latest entry in the critically acclaimed and award-winning Tomb Raider® series. Created by a team of veteran Tomb Raider developers at Eidos-Montréal, in collaboration with Crystal Dynamics, the game will be available on September 14, 2018 for the Xbox One family of devices, including Xbox One X, PlayStation®4 system and Windows PC/Steam®.

In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara must master a deadly jungle, overcome terrifying tombs, and persevere through her darkest hour. As she races to save the world from a Maya apocalypse, Lara will be forged into the Tomb Raider she is destined to be.

The star of the critically acclaimed 2013 Tomb Raider reboot and the award-winning Rise of the Tomb Raider®, Camilla Luddington, makes her return as Lara Croft® with yet another stunning performance in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

The Recently Announced Super Smash Bros. Game for Nintendo Switch Headlines a Week of Games, Tournaments and More

EDMOND, Wash., April 26, 2018 – Nintendo is returning to the E3 video game trade show in June with fan-favorite activities and new features to keep watchers around the world and attendees in Los Angeles engaged and having fun. As in recent years, Nintendo will focus its E3 activities on games coming soon, with a special spotlight given to a key headlining title: the recently announced Super Smash Bros. game coming to the Nintendo Switch system this year. Games launching beyond 2018 will be featured at a later date.

The festivities kick off with two days of high-level competitive action at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles. On Monday, June 11, from 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. PT, qualifying teams representing the United States/Canada, Japan, Europe and Australia/New Zealand will ink their way to glory in the opening rounds of the Splatoon 2 World Championship tournament. The finals will take place the following day on Tuesday, June 12, immediately followed by the Super Smash Bros. Invitational 2018 tournament, which will pit invited players against each other in the recently announced Super Smash Bros. game for Nintendo Switch. A few fans who come dressed as their favorite Nintendo character on June 12 may be chosen to play the upcoming Super Smash Bros. game on stage in exhibition play. Tickets will be issued on-site at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles each day of the event. Additional details about how fans can attend in-person will be shared in the future. All the action from both days will be streamed live on https://e3.nintendo.com, YouTube and Twitch.

At 9 a.m. PT on Tuesday, June 12, Nintendo will debut a video presentation* featuring games releasing in 2018, including the recently announced Super Smash Bros. game for Nintendo Switch. Right after the presentation, Nintendo Treehouse: Live | E3 2018 will begin three days of live gameplay, appearances by developers and an insider look at games, starting with the upcoming Super Smash Bros. game for Nintendo Switch. Everyone can watch the video presentation and Nintendo Treehouse: Live | E3 2018 at https://e3.nintendo.com, YouTube and Twitch.

June 12-14, visitors to Nintendo’s booth at the Los Angeles Convention Center will be able to play a variety of games, including the recently announced Super Smash Bros. game for Nintendo Switch. Additionally, some of the most noteworthy upcoming third-party games on Nintendo Switch will be featured across several Nintendo activities throughout the week.

Streaming content will be shown live at the Nintendo NY store, starting on June 11 with the Splatoon 2 World Championship opening rounds. And June 12-15, visitors to the store will be among the first to play a selection of games shown at Nintendo’s booth during E3.

“Every year we take a look at E3 and craft the best experience for our fans, regardless of whether they are attending the show or watching from afar,” said Doug Bowser, Nintendo of America’s Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “We expect that each of our E3 activities will give an additional boost to the already strong momentum enjoyed by Nintendo Switch.”

Additional details about Nintendo’s presence at E3 2018 will be shared in the coming weeks. For the latest updates, keep an eye on https://e3.nintendo.com.

*Name not final.

[click to embiggen]

About Nintendo: The worldwide pioneer in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Nintendo Switch™ system and the Nintendo 3DS™ family of portable systems. Since 1983, when it launched the Nintendo Entertainment System™, Nintendo has sold more than 4.5 billion video games and more than 710 million hardware units globally, including Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, as well as the Game Boy™, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS™ family of systems, Super NES™, Nintendo 64™, Nintendo GameCube™, Wii™ and Wii U™ systems. It has also created industry icons that have become well-known, household names, such as Mario, Donkey Kong, Metroid, Zelda and Pokémon. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo’s operations in the Americas. For more information about Nintendo, please visit the company’s website at http://www.nintendo.com.

Four incompetent cats hijack a giant killer robot to change the course of a war between cats, dogs, and insects. But while these three species fight for control of the world, a powerful mechanical being named GEAR arrives to risk his own life to save the lives of good cats.

REDMOND, Wash., April 26, 2018 – Cowabunga! This May, Splatoon 2 for Nintendo Switch will host its first-ever tournament-style Splatfest to determine which brother from the iconic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise is the ultimate fan-favorite. Featuring characters from Nickelodeon’s upcoming animated series Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, fans will vote in three rounds to crown one Hero in a Half-Shell (turtle power!). Will it be Raph, Leo, Mikey or Donnie?

To participate, players won’t be asked to order a pizza, hop on a skateboard or save the city from an army of masked ninjas – they can just start voting for their pick beginning on April 27 simply by visiting the in-game Inkopolis Square. The first of three in-game Splatoon 2 Splatfest tournaments takes place May 4-5 and pits Raph against Leo, with the second running May 11-12 and featuring Mikey vs. Donnie. The final match between the winners of the first two showdowns takes place May 18-19. The full schedule is below:

PORTLAND, OR, 04/26/2018 — Fans will experience a cyberpunk take on the RAT QUEENS by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Will Kirkby from Image/Shadowline this July in an electrically thrilling one-shot, RAT QUEENS SPECIAL: NEON STATIC.

“This one shot is an opportunity to take the Rat Queens to a space that we've never been before,” said Wiebe. “With Will Kirkby, the Neon Static issue is unlike anything we've ever done before, and his artistic style is the perfect opportunity to experiment with any wild ideas that come to mind. It's all the personality you'd expect in a setting you'd never expect. Cyberpunk sass and sorcery.”

Readers will need to strap themselves in for a ride to an alternate and futuristic world, where the Rat Queens take to the neon streets of Palisade as an elite team of shadow operatives. An anonymous fiend creeps through the dark web, stealing identities and blackmailing innocent civilians for cold, hard Goldyen—and only the Queens can stop him!

RAT QUEENS SPECIAL: NEON STATIC one-shot (Diamond Code MAY180047) hits stores on Wednesday, July 18th. The final order cutoff deadline for retailers is Monday, June 25th.

ABOUT IMAGE COMICS
Image Comics is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded in 1992 by a collective of bestselling artists. Image has since gone on to become one of the largest comics publishers in the United States. Image currently has five partners: Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri, and Jim Valentino. It consists of five major houses: Todd McFarlane Productions, Top Cow Productions, Shadowline Comics, Skybound Entertainment, and Image Central. Image publishes comics and graphic novels in nearly every genre, sub-genre, and style imaginable. It offers science fiction, fantasy, romance, horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, humor and more by the finest artists and writers working in the medium today. For more information, visitwww.imagecomics.com.

Los Angeles (April 27, 2018) -- With the announcement that DRAGON QUEST® XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age™ is coming to the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system and STEAM® on September 4, FINAL FANTASY® BRAVE EXVIUS® will have a special collaboration with the DRAGON QUEST franchise. Starting today, FINAL FANTASY BRAVE EXVIUS players can battle legendary DRAGON QUEST monsters and obtain event-exclusive items.

All players that launch the app during the event may dive into wave battle-type quests where consecutive groups of monsters can be fought for a limited period of time. DRAGON QUEST monsters Golem and Robbin’ ‘Ood can be found in regular battles, while formidable foes Dragonlord and Orochi will be classified as bosses. Medals earned from defeating these monsters in raids may be exchanged for Erdrick’s sword, among other famous equipment and items from the DRAGON QUEST series.

Players have the chance to obtain the Dragonlord, Liquid Metal Slime, Robbin’ ‘Ood, Golem, Killing Machine, and Orochi from rare summoning during the campaign period. Also, Slime units will be awarded to all participants as daily login bonuses throughout the campaign, with additional Slime units obtainable by trading medals earned during the event period.

This week’s Nintendo Download includes the following featured content:

Nintendo eShop on Nintendo Switch

Jotun: Valhalla Edition – Jotun: Valhalla Edition is a hand-drawn, action-exploration game set in Norse mythology. You play as Thora, a Viking warrior who died an inglorious death and must prove herself to the Gods to enter Valhalla. Explore vast regions of Norse Purgatory to find runes to unleash the jotun, giant Norse elementals. Fight them using only your massive two-handed axe, the blessings of the Gods and your skills. Jotun: Valhalla Edition launches April 27.

Light Fall – Explore the Forgotten World of Numbra to uncover your mysterious past and save the land and its inhabitants from an imminent threat. In this land of eternal night, you will rely on your Shadow Core to brave the many challenges and foes standing in your way. Do you have what it takes to survive in perilous Numbra?

DLC & Updates:

Splatoon 2 Update Now Available – Nintendo has dropped some fresh (and free!) new content for the Splatoon 2 game on the Nintendo Switch system this week! After downloading a major new update (Version 3.0) to the Splatoon 2 game, players will have access to a huge amount of new content. This includes the addition of more than 100 pieces of new and returning gear, new songs, the introduction of a challenging new X Rank for the top-performing players in Ranked Battle, weapon balance adjustments and the return of Callie of the famous Squid Sisters. For more information about this free update, please visit the official Nintendo customer support site.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Version 1.4.0 Update – The Version 1.4.0 free update, which will be available later today, includes the ability to recruit and resonate the Rare Blade T-elos from the Xenosaga series after clearing the main game story. Get full update notes at the official Nintendo customer support site.

Friday, April 27, 2018

Today The Qwillery is spotlighting the works of J. Kathleen Cheney who was featured in the 2013 Debut Author Challenge!

The following 3 works have updated covers:

Whatever Else
EQP Books, July 4, 2016
eBook, 35 pages

Maia is a young woman with only a small gift: the ability to watch others from afar. To cement a treaty between two clans, she married Arras, a young man she's known most of her life. But when her brother comes to visit, he reveals a shameful secret that leaves Maia questioning everything she believes about her husband. Now she must use her small gift to determine the truth of her brother's claim...and decide whether to stay at her husband's side or flee him.

The Dragon's Child: Six Short Stories
Dream Palace Press; 2 edition, February 25, 2017
eBook, 290 pages
Also available in Trade Paperback

Kseniya Ilyevna originally came to the mountain of the Dragon Wizard to protect her younger sister, but when she learns of the wizard’s true plans for his daughter, she vows to spirit the child away.

In seizing freedom for the little girl—her sister’s child, Jia-li—Kseniya finds herself tied to the Zheng family and all the strange events that befall them. In six short stories, we follow Kseniya and her extended family as Jia-li grows into a budding wizard herself.

[Previously published separately, this brings together the stories found in the ebooks: The Dragon’s Child, The Dragon’s Pearl, and The Eretik, and now contains a bonus short story, "A Time for Every Purpose"].

The Sparrow in Hiding
EQP Books, October 18, 2016
eBook, 137 pages
Also available in Trade Paperback

Irina’s family has come to the countryside to escape the summer heat of St. Petersburg, but she discovers a new worker has been hired to maintain her family’s aviary, a one-armed man who poses an intriguing mystery.

Evgeny is hiding from a witch. With the help of his younger sister, he’d survived the witch’s curse, but in the aftermath, he was left with only one arm, eyes that appear inhuman, and an ability to see the truth in others’ souls.

The chief of the Oathbreakers, Amal Horn is one of only a handful of people aware of the true power the abandoned underground Fortress of Salonen holds. The Cince Empire wants its secrets, though, and will do anything to get someone inside. When the Horn find a stranger trespassing on the glacier below it, they realize the Cince have formulated a new plan of attack. Now the Horn Family must decide whether to wake the sleeping Fortress so it can defend itself against the Cince…or kill it forever.

Original
Horn 2
EQP Books, April 27, 2017
eBook, 268
Also available in Trade Paperback

Amal, Lady Horn, has always been called rash. She makes decisions far too quickly for the elders of the Horn Family. Bringing home a mysterious foreigner—one who has ties to her people’s ancient enemies, the Cince—is bad enough, but now she’s taken him as her lover. She might even want more from him.

Dalyan is an Original, a copy of a man long dead. The elders of the Horn Family thought they could use his singular knowledge to resurrect an ancient Fortress, a sentient underground city long abandoned by its people. But when Dalyan can’t access the memoires of the man from whom he’s copied, the elders begin to ask whether he’s an unfortunate liability instead. For Amal’s sake, Dalyan is determined to prove them wrong.

Together Amal and Dalyan work to build a coalition to raise the hidden Fortress, but they’ll need the help of Amal’s friends, of the Oathbreakers spread across the country, and—if possible—the king himself.

A new player has arrived at Horn Keep, and it’s up to Amal to decide whether he’s the key to keeping her people safe, or the threat they’ve feared the most. Aulis is, like Dalyan, a version of the same long-dead engineer, a Founder of the Salonen Fortress. That alone should make him worth keeping alive.

But he’s served the Cince Empire for almost two decades, the very people who want to steal Salonen Fortress. Now Amal is faced with the task of deciding whether he’s even capable of telling the truth, whether he can lie to Dalyan. The question is…are they the same man or not?

And is buying Aulis’ loyalty worth the risk of giving him the one thing he wants more than life itself? It’s within Amal’s power, but she knows that doing so will forever change her people’s world…

Before they even met. Mikael Lee and Shironne Anjir were tangled together in their need to solve murders.

Mikael Lee, an aide to the king's brother, dreams his way into others deaths, and then follows the clues within back to the killer. Shironne Anjir, a young girl so sensitive to the stimuli around her that she cannot shut it out, has been sharing those dreams with him, and when a death falls closer to her doorstep, she's the one who takes up the task of finding a killer...a path that might give her a direction for the rest of her life.

Includes three short stories: A Mention of Death, Touching the Dead, and Endings. plus an excerpt from Dreaming Death, the case where they finally meet.

Ellis Dantreon is barely fifteen when she learns that her father–the king of Jenear–has decreed that she’s to be trained as a soldier. Thrust in among the others at the newly reopened War College of Amiestrin, Ellis must earn the other cadets’ respect and trust. Not all of them are pleased at having a girl thrust among them. Ellis has to choose which ones to trust, sometimes pushing back against her instructors’ urging as she does.

But most of all, she must deal with a world far wider than the one she’s known. That world will shape her future, for the Gifted whom her meager staff have always considered myths prove to be very real indeed. Those people want very much to influence the course of a future Jenear. When it comes time for her young brother to take the throne, the Seers among them believe that Ellis will decide whether her younger brother lives or dies, or if he’ll be replaced by another claimant to the throne altogether.

And hiding among the cadets and staff, some of those Gifted have arrived at Amiestrin…

Once considered humanity’s future home, Mars hasn’t worked out like anybody hoped. Plagued by crime and a terraforming project that's centuries from completion, Mars is a red hell.

Denver Moon, P.I., works the dark underbelly of Mars City. While investigating a series of violent crimes linked to red fever—a Martian disorder that turns its victims into bloodthirsty killers—Denver discovers a cryptic message left by Tatsuo Moon, Mars City co-founder and Denver's grandfather. The same grandfather who died two decades ago.

Twenty-year-old revelations force Denver on a quest for truth, but Tatsuo's former friend, Cole Hennessy, leader of the Church of Mars, has other plans and will stop at nothing to keep Denver from disclosing Tatsuo's secrets to the world.

Hell-bent on reclaiming her grandfather's legacy, Denver—along with her AI implant, Smith, companion android, Nigel, and shuttle pilot, Navya—set out on a quest to find the answers they hope will shed light on the church's true agenda, the origin of red fever, and the mysteries surrounding Tatsuo's tragic death.

There’s also a short story eBook prequel to Denver Moon: The Mind of Mars titled Denver Moon: Metamorphosis which you can find at Amazon as well as at other bookstores, and a mini-series of comics on ComiXology.

I LOWERED THE VISOR OF MY HELMET, BUT IT wouldn’t lock into place. I fiddled with the latch, then finally used a fist to knock it into position. A new helmet would be wise, but this was the helmet my grandfather gave me when I was a little girl. The helmet he gave me the day he died.

I cycled the airlock and stepped out into a long, sloped tunnel leading to the surface. My boots left deep prints in the sand the color of a dried bloodstain. That was how most chose to describe the color of Mars. Bloodstained. Me, I couldn’t see color. Call it a disability if you like, but I call it a gift. A gift that has kept me sane since taking the case. The things I’d seen, the carnage, the gore…

People I’d known all my life reduced to scraps scattered sloppily about like bits and pieces in a slaughterhouse.

Scene after scene, horror after horror, I thanked my lying eyes for taking the edge off so much murder and death. It might not be much considering that, even in monochrome, the crime scenes were plenty vivid. Vivid enough to provide for several lifetimes worth of nightmares.

But at least it was something.

It was something.

At the end of the tunnel, I pushed my way through a series of heavy plastic flaps designed to keep out the worst of the dust and grit from Mars’ constant sand storms. Shoving the last of the flaps aside, I was greeted by a gust of wind that made me adjust my footing to keep balance. Sand peppered my faceplate, and for the first time in a long time I was outside. The view was just how I remembered it. Dusty. Gloomy. Claustrophobic.

An arrow blinked brightly on the glass of my face-plate, and I angled in its direction. Stats flashed on screen, my eyes locking onto the distance to the habitat: 375.5 meters.

Trusting my navigation system, I started into a slow loping jog, each step carrying me several feet thanks to the planet’s weak gravity. My breath echoed loudly inside my helmet as the distance to the habitat ticked quickly downward.

<I hope they’re okay,> said Smith. <You were like a daughter to them, you know?>

I knew. Yaozu and Aiwa Chen were among the very first group of settlers, a hundred of them in all, including my grandfather, who led the expedition along with Cole Hennessey. They were the reason I took the case—I couldn’t trust another eye to stop the killer before this nightmare got to the Chens. I had to get to them first.

Looking up, I could barely make the hulking outline of machinery through the haze of dust. Smith didn’t live in my head, but he could see through my eyes. His vision was better in most ways than mine. I’d made a few enhancements since purchasing him, but not too many. He saw things down to the microscopic level, and if I were willing to spend the credits, Smith’s vision could go submicroscopic. He could see colors, too, even though everything I saw remained one degree of gray or another. I’d tried neural devices and lenses, but none of them worked. Smith had the ability to colorize my vision, and on occasion I had the opportunity to view the world like everyone else, but thanks to the time lags, it came with a price: nausea, dizziness and Mars’ worst migraine.

I veered to get around the space freighter-sized derelict, one of many littering the surface. Once used to carve a livable colony underground, builders like this one had been retired decades ago. Mars colony was as complete as it would ever be. At least until Jericho, the terraforming project, made the surface habitable...but that wouldn’t be for another century or two.

I checked the display, less than fifteen meters to go. I stared straight ahead. Through the thick haze of the sandstorm, I could just make out the glow of a neon sign: Marseum. Under it was the word Closed.

I headed toward the light, and behind it, a flat surface began to emerge. A wall. Then, a roof. Finally, an airlock.

I pushed through the plastic flaps and didn’t bother ringing the intercom before letting myself through the outer door. Shutting it behind me, I stabbed buttons with my gloved fingers until I heard the hiss of air filling the chamber and felt artificial gravity pushing down all around me. A minute later, the light turned on, and I popped my visor before spinning the hatch wheel until I heard the lock click.

<Be careful, Denver.>

Slowly, I pushed the door open and peeked my head through. “Yaozu? Aiwa?”

The museum was empty of people, the lights turned off except for those inside display cases. Cautiously, I moved through the room, past framed photos, and plaques, and mannequins in spacesuits. The next room was circular, the entire area painted a foreboding black. Detecting my presence, the holo-chamber lit, and I was on the surface thirty-five years ago when the sky was clear, and from what others used to tell me, the color of butterscotch.

I made for a holographic exit sign that led me out into a corridor. I passed through the lecture hall and glimpsed a tall figure moving quickly along the polished metal walls beside me. I reached for the weapon in the bag over my shoulder, but after a second look, I recognized the fringe of bleached-white hair swooping over Japanese features inside my enviro-helmet. Just my own reflection. I exhaled and made a quick check of the hall that yielded nobody. Up the stairs, I knocked on the door. “Yaozu? Aiwa?”

I pulled off my gloves and palmed the lockscreen. A light flashed, their home system still remembering me.

The living room was empty. Same for the bedroom and bathroom. But not the kitchen. There, on the table, centered on a plate, was an ear. A human ear.

<Here we go again,> said Smith.

My heart sank, and my eyes began to water. Not again. Eleven of the original settlers were already dead. All eleven in the last two days, and none closer to me and my long-deceased grandfather than Yaozu and Aiwa.

A trail of blood led to the back door. Beyond it, I knew, was the first habitat, the very first structure built on Mars. Part concrete bunker and part circus tent, it housed the original colony until the first of the tunnels were ready.

I slowly passed through the door, stepping into a warehouse-sized structure that now protected and preserved the original habitat.

<You should be armed, Denver.>

<I am armed.>

<You know what I mean.>

<I won’t draw until I have to. Like you said, Yaozu and Aiwa were like parents to me.>

<If they have the feve, you better be ready to draw fast.>

I moved toward the habitat. Overhead lights blinked in and out, causing ghostly shadows to flicker about. The blood spotted path pulled me forward. I passed a severed thumb without stopping to look. Stepped over the front half of a foot.

The habitat loomed large ahead of me. Two stories of concrete and steel. To the right stood the attached greenhouse tent, pitched of canvas and plastic that flapped slowly in the breeze created by giant ventilation fans in the warehouse ceiling.

The habitat airlock was open. Inside, a donation jar containing a handful of credits sat on a pedestal.

<I’m picking up a biological heat signature,> Smith said.

<Just one?>

<Yes.>

<Where?>

<In the habitat. Near my old office.>

<You know I hate when you call it your office.>

<Sorry, Denver, but you know that’s how I think of it.>

I gritted my teeth. If he wanted to believe he really was my grandfather instead of an AI who had simply been updated to include my grandfather’s memories, now wasn’t the time to argue.

I turned left, then right, and stopped in my tracks. A body lay on the ground. Naked. The head was missing, and his gut had been split, organs yanked free and left in a pile. He was male, and the tattoo on his shoulder — a simple gray circle representing Mars — told me this was Yaozu.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and blinked away the tears forming in my eyes before moving past. Smith had detected a heat signature in the next room. Aiwa was still alive. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

The door was cracked and I used a boot to push it open. Aiwa was inside, standing in the corner, her platinum hair matted with blood. In her hands was her husband’s head, one of his cheeks marred by teeth marks, the other cheek missing as if eaten.

“Aiwa,” I said, “it’s me, Denver.”

Her eyes didn’t register my presence. Instead, they darted madly about the room.

“Red fever has you,” I said. “I can help. Let’s get you to a doctor, understand?”

She lifted the head like she was going to take another bite, but then she let it drop from her hands. Yaozu’s head landed with a thud and rolled a few inches to the side.

“That’s right,” I said. I reached into the bag strapped over my shoulder and pushed past my gun to the syringe underneath. “Let me give you this shot, and we’ll get you the care you need.”

She didn’t look my way. Instead, her eyes landed on a bloody butcher knife resting on the floor.

“Stay with me,” I said before I bit off the cap of the syringe and spit it to the floor. “Whatever’s in your head, it’s just the feve talking. I’m going to take it all away, okay?” I reached back into my bag and pulled out a small vial of charcoal liquid. “This is just a sedative. It’s going to take all your pain away.”

I filled the syringe. Aiwa’s head cocked to the side like an animal watching something it couldn’t understand. I took a slow step toward her, my hands raised to not appear threatening. She was just two meters away. “You’re doing good, Aiwa, just stay still.”
<Um, Denver,> said Smith, <I hate to interrupt.>

<Then don’t.>

<But I just got a message, one I think you’re going to want to hear.>

I took another step forward. <The message can wait.>

<But it’s from your grandfather.>

For a split-second, I froze. Then I shook off the ridiculous comment and continued toward Aiwa.

<He’s dead, Smith.>

<I know, but the message was buried in my...his memories. I thought it was garbage code, but it just unen-crypted itself.>

I stepped closer, keeping Aiwa trapped in the corner. <I’m a little busy right now.>

<But your grand—>

<Shut up, dammit!>

Aiwa scratched her head. I winced at the sound of her fingernails rasping against her skull. A trickle of blood leaked from her hairline to a forehead wrinkle and flowed toward her ear.

“That’s right,” I said. “Just relax, and it will all be over soon.”

A chime sounded, and a hologram lit above Aiwa’s desk. As if by reflex, she turned to it. I glanced at the image myself, my jaw dropping at what I saw. It was Ojiisan. My grandfather who died twenty years ago.

<See?> said Smith. <It looks like Aiwa got the same message you did.>

My grandfather was dead. Yet there he was, clear as day. Ojiisan hadn’t aged a bit since I’d last seen him when I was a girl. The black hair by his temples was still shot with gray. His chin stood proud and his eyes held a firm gaze. His mouth began to move, but I couldn’t hear his voice. The volume was too low.

How could he have sent a message after all these years? It didn’t make any sense. I took a tentative step toward the desk, and like a flash, Aiwa slipped out from the corner, an elbow catching me as she darted past my position. I spun around, but she already had the knife. She charged, her eyes seized by madness. I dodged, but not fast enough, and felt the blade penetrate my suit and bite into my side.

I stuck her with the needle, sinking it hard into her shoulder, and stabbed the plunger down.

She took another swing. I ducked low, managing to avoid the blow. I ran for cover behind the desk, but she came over the top, her weight slamming me across the chest. I fell into the wall and lost my balance, landing painfully on my hip. She dropped on top of me, a knee pinning me to the floor.

I grabbed the wrist holding the knife with both of my hands and tried to turn the blade away from my chest but, despite Aiwa’s age, I was powerless to stop the edge from slowly sinking closer to my body. I let out a long breath in hopes of compressing my chest, but it wasn’t enough and the blade’s tip dug painfully into my breastbone.

“Aiwa! Please! It’s me. It’s Denver!”

She couldn’t hear me. My words were just background noise in a head overcome with the feve. Her face was flushed, veins straining under her skin. Her lips were stretched wide to bare every single tooth in her mouth. The blade sunk deeper. My arms shook under the pressure.

I heard a bone snap in her wrist, but still, the feve wouldn’t release its hold on her. She raked me with her other hand, nails digging into my cheek like a cat’s claws.

I managed to stabilize the knife, and with a concerted push, moved it upward and away from my body. I was winning the battle now as the drug took effect. Summoning what little energy I had left, I rolled her off me. The knife fell from her hand and she finally went slack.

I stood on wobbly knees. Blood ran from my gouged cheek. My suit was wet from the wounds in my side and chest.

I looked at the desk, at the hologram of Ojiisan, his mouth still moving as he impossibly delivered a message from the grave.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Discover Captain Phasma’s mysterious history in this “Journey to Star Wars:The Last Jedi” novel.

One of the most cunning and merciless officers of the First Order, Captain Phasma commands the favor of her superiors, the respect of her peers, and the terror of her enemies. But for all her renown, Phasma remains as virtually unknown as the impassive expression on her gleaming chrome helmet. Now, an adversary is bent on unearthing her mysterious origins—and exposing a secret she guards as zealously and ruthlessly as she serves her masters.

Deep inside the Battlecruiser Absolution, a captured Resistance spy endures brutal interrogation at the hands of a crimson-armored stormtrooper—Cardinal. But the information he desires has nothing to do with the Resistance or its covert operations against the First Order.

What the mysterious stormtrooper wants is Phasma’s past—and with it whatever long-buried scandal, treachery, or private demons he can wield against the hated rival who threatens his own power and privilege in the ranks of the First Order. His prisoner has what Cardinal so desperately seeks, but she won’t surrender it easily. As she wages a painstaking war of wills with her captor, bargaining for her life in exchange for every precious revelation, the spellbinding chronicle of the inscrutable Phasma unfolds. But this knowledge may prove more than just dangerous once Cardinal possesses it—and once his adversary unleashes the full measure of her fury.

The epic sword-and-sorcery Bound Gods fantasy series comes to its dark conclusion in this thrilling story of a vibrant world whose fate lies in the hands of vengeful gods and bold warriors.

The world has been plunged into darkness . . . and only the scheming priest Joros might be able to bring back the sun.

With his ragtag band of fighters—a laconic warrior, a pair of street urchins, a ruthless priestess, and an unhinged sorcerer—Joros seeks to defeat the ancient gods newly released from their long imprisonment. But the Twins have champions of their own, and powers beyond knowing . . . and the only sure thing is that they won’t go down without a fight.

The fate of the world hangs in the balance as the Twins aim to enact revenge on the parents that imprisoned them, and the world that spurned them. The Long Night has begun, and the shadows hide many secrets—including that the Twins themselves may not be as powerful as they would have everyone think.

Joros and his allies must strike now—before the Twins can consolidate their power . . . and before they are allowed to shape the world in their vision.

Finn Graymare is back in the final installment of Randy Henderson's Familia Arcana series, Smells Like Finn Spirit.

Finn's re-adaptation to the human world is not going so well. He's got a great girlfriend, and is figuring out how things like the internet work, but he is still carrying the disembodied personality of Alynon, Prince of the Silver Demesne, the fae who had occupied his body during his imprisonment. And he's not getting along at all with his older brother. And oh, by the way, his dead grandfather is still trying to possess him in order to bring about Armageddon.

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